Discovery

Short story, 1.2k words

Old Fra Vigil was up at the dark and early hours again: hence the sobriquet given him by the abbot. He was the watchful one, the one always keeping a vigil. The one that was once a toddler found awake and abandoned on the ground outside the abbey’s north gate. Awake; yes, wide awake. Awake with his back to the great wrought-iron gate, and his bright blue eyes to the dawning sky. That was his earliest memory. Not his mother’s face or the sound of her voice; just laying on the ground with dry-shudder sobs, looking at star-blossoms in space while morning gusts dried tear-streaks on his face. Some of the frater at the abbey were said to have their heads in the clouds, but ever since he was a boy, Fra Vigil’s head had been in the nebulae of space. He was most comfortable, most at ease, when it was a cold, clear night and he could be up in the top of the observatory tower. So, he was well suited serving as the abbey’s Astronomer for the past forty years or so.

He had made a number of noteworthy contributions to the field in his tenure. He had a comet¹ named after him and was the single author of the Astronomicon, a massive tome on everything to know about the celestial sciences, which was now widely taught in most universities. He was also the famous tutor of Sar Guillam the Just, who had brought all the Heirs of Plutus under his heel and authority, and was made primer of Nova Roma. But that was a long time ago. He was an old man now. He was so old that he even outlived Guillam. He was so old that he was starting to remember the dreams he had when he first came to learn about astronomy at the abbey, and what he had been inspired to do. There was one hidden object in space that Fra Vigil knew he had to find before he died, if he could. And he had spent the past forty years of his life looking for it. He was looking for it right now.

With Fra Vigil this morning was a dozy pupil from one of the great heir-houses: young Rory Angersson. The old man hadn’t taken a student since Guillam, half a century ago. But he took on Rory when he heard from another astronomer at Parisius Novus that Rory’s father, the Heir of Mercia, couldn’t afford the astronomer’s tutelage fee. So he sent a contract to the great house and became the tutor of Rory Angersson for no greater fee than a daily remembrance for the mother he never knew.

Poor Rory’s eyes had been heavy since Lauds,² and he had resorted to asking Fra Vigil as many questions as he could, so as to keep from sleeping while Fra Vigil carefully maneuvered the great telescope about the abbey’s observatory tower.

“What are you looking for, Fra Vigil?”

“I can’t say, Master Rory.”

“Why not, Fra Vigil?”

“I—don’t really want to answer that question either.”

“Why not?”

“It is a—superstition.”

Rory’s eyes widened when he heard the word, and became considerably more awake.

“Isn’t that a heresy, Fra Vigil?”

“Is it? Tell me, Master Rory, what is a heresy?”

“I don’t have to tell you, Fra Vigil. Heresy is when you think something is true even though you know it’s not.”

The old man grunted as he squinted through the gazing lens of the observatory’s instrument.

“Well,” he said absentmindedly, “I think that—if I tell you what I am looking for—that it will sort of take away from me finding it. And I think I’ll find it less.”

“I don’t understand, Fra Vigil.”

“Neither do I.”

“But how would telling me what you’re looking for stop you from finding it?”

“It wouldn’t, really.”

“Then why can’t you tell me?”

He sighed and pulled his eye away from the lens and looked down on the small boy who was now very awake and squinting his eyes at his tutor with frustration.

“Have you always been this serious? Even at home?”

“Of course. Especially serious about heresy.”

“Well I’ve explained it better to you, so what do you think? Am I a heretic?”

Rory paused and his eyebrows furrowed and he tilted his head so as to think.

“No, just supersticious. If you really think that, and you’re not just lying to yourself, or trying to trick me and teach me something bad. It just isn’t—logical.”

“Unfortunately, not everything is logical.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Like you, for instance. You don’t make much sense to me.”

“Why not?”

“You’re only, what, ten years old? And you talk like a stodgy old professor in the universities.”

“Well, what’s wrong with that?” said Rory with indignation.

“Nothing. You’re just something of an anomaly in the world of ten year old boys. Common logic says that the old men are the ones who lecture ten year old boys, yet here you are lecturing me.”

Rory blew out a puff of frustrated air and crossed his arms and sat back heavily into the chair by the computer terminal which displayed what Vigil was looking at through the telescope.

“Can I look in it?” he said at length.

Through an arched window Fra Vigil could see the purple spread of dawn peak over the horizon and he knew that soon the planet of their moon would rise over the horizon and end his search.

“Why not?” he said with a sigh. He gestured to the short and ornate metal rise where one stands to look in the telescope and aided the boy up. With a few lever pushes he brought the great instrument down until the view finder was at the level of his student.

“What would you like to see?”

“I shan’t tell you,” said Rory. “Lest I cannot find it.”

“You’re making fun of me,” laughed Fra Vigil.

“I would like to conduct an experiment,” said Rory seriously, “I shall secretly write down on this scrap of vellum here what I am looking for. Then I shall search for it, and then you will tell me what I have found. And if it is what I wrote down, then I know you’re not a heretic.”

“Fine,” laughed the old man. “Let us conduct this experiment of yours. But I fear that you may not like the result.”

“With the greatest respect,” said Rory, “It is only natural to be afeared of heresy.”

The boy walked over to the edge of the observation stand and looked up at the brightening sky. He pointed at one star more visible than the others, the last star to lose visibility at the end of their Plutian night.

“That star, what is it’s name?”

“You should know,” said his tutor, “what is its constellation?”

“I can’t tell,” said Rory, “none of the other stars are visible.”

“It is part of the constellation Vir.”

“Is it Psuedosol I?”

“It is. Is that all you wrote down?”

“No. Can I look at it?”

“Of course.”

The telescope in all its heaviness lumbered about to a nearly opposite part of the sky to that which it had been oriented before. Rory gazed through the viewing lens when it came to its rest, and on the screen behind the computer displayed a bright star obscured by a cloud of bright blood-red whisps of nebula in the shape of a saltire. Under magnification, it appeared to illuminate the whole of the cloud.

“I cannot tell if I can see it,” said Rory.

“This is as clear a sight of Psuedosol I as I can produce here, with this telescope.”

“Are there any more powerful?”

“Not that we can look through this night.”

“Then it would seem that I am a student of a heretic, indeed,” sighed Rory.

Fra Vigil would have laughed at this. But his gaze was fixed on the computer display behind. His eyes were wide. Wider than usual. He was more awake now than he had ever been, even more than that night many years ago when he was a sad, solitary boy left on the stoop of the monastery doors.

“Tell me, Rory,” he said; his tone was low and urgent, “What did you write on that vellum scrap that you’re holding?”

Rory handed it to his mentor. Fra Vigil unfolded it in his hands, and as soon as he read it, allowed it to drop fluttering down to the ground.

The scrap read, Terra Antiqua. Earth.

1. Vigil’s Comet; next anticipated pass to Plutus is 3477 Anno Domini (Plutian), or, 1066 Anno Viri (Terran)

2. The third hour; approximately three o’clock in the morning (Terran)